SJ was only 28 at the time he made that decision and your implication that making Cook CEO was a similar bad decision requires that over the next 30 years he learned absolutely nothing.
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Apple Board Modifies Tim Cook CEO Bonus Stock Award to Be More Performance Based
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SJ was only 28 at the time he made that decision and your implication that making Cook CEO was a similar bad decision requires that over the next 30 years he learned absolutely nothing.
AAPL is not at $600 today. And the company is significantly more valuable today than it was when it traded at $600 (more profit per year, more money in the bank). At $600 or $700 shorting Apple might be reasonable again, but anyone suggesting it at the current share price is a troll or a nutter. And anyone suggesting it without even knowing Apple's stock symbol is outing himself
But what does that have to do with "innovation"? Apple might be making a bad bet with the one size fits all mentality but I don't think that has anything to do with them not knowing how to innovate. Same thing with touch screen laptops. Apple's mentality is touch belongs on trackpads and the mouse. It's not that they don't know how to do convertibles, it's that they think they're a bad idea. Of course Apple has reversed course in the past and could do so in the future but again I don't see that as a lack of innovation.
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Didn't Eric Schmidt sell 42% of his google shares? Going by your logic he must really think Google is going in the crapper.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevesc...idt-to-sell-2-5b-of-google-stock-42-of-stake/
And don't a lot of executives sell stock to cover tax liability?
Did you type that with a straight face or was it mean to be sarcastic? Honestly I can't tell because there are people here at MR that actually believe this kind of stuff. I mean we all know that ultra books are not innovative, just MBA knockoffs and that every smartphone now on the market is a retort to the iPhone -- they want to produce the next iPhone not the Galaxy S4. Really, what were PC laptops before the MBA -- bricks. So they figured out how to slim them down, added a touch screen, and presto... PC laptop sales are still getting eaten alive by the iPad, but not the MBA.
Now of course Apple has remained steady because it's products sell and sell big (though not as fast as previously, that is true). The other makers being imitators have to find there own niche. But, they don't do it via innovation. I hardly would consider a new size or color innovative. And that is all Apple's competitors are doing these days. If they had a truly unique, innovative, desirable device consumers would abandon the Apple product for it in a flash because consumers are only loyal to themselves and what the best product on the market for them is.
The truth is for people who know Apple history is that Apple pushes out a cool new product and then that product evolves very slowly. Apple is due for a new product, I grant you that, but it is still way ahead of its competitors who have never reinvented any product category -- just follow Apple's lead.
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No such implication - that is your spin. I summed up that post by saying Steve made some bad decisions.
The real reason AAPL is down
After a lot of thought, I think there are at least two good reasons why AAPL is down.
1) The hedge fund managers want volatility - they need to manipulate stocks in order to profit. They play their little hedge-fund manager games amongst each other, seeing who can trigger a herd reaction and be on the winning side of that landslide. Now AAPL is down, later it will be up. It's too big a part of the NASDAQ - heck, the entire market - to be ignored like this forever.
2) The professional money manager crowd hates the fact that tens of millions of individuals have purchased AAPL stock on their own, without paying money management fees to the money manager crowd. If these tens of millions of individual, thinking investors can make money without the money manager crowd then who needs the money managers?? The money manager crowd wants the individual, free-range investor to fail. There's incentive across the entire financial management industry to lower the price of AAPL as far and for as long as possible to shake out the individual investors.
The stock market and financial industry is severely rigged against individual "retail" investors. Profits are made by using insider information and by seeding false information to the public, thereby temporarily creating runs or sells on certain stocks.
While I don't think there is a formal conspiracy to manipulate the stock, there are systemic reasons why AAPL is down. None of those reasons have anything to do with Apple or its performance in the actual market (not stock market) in which it competes. All of those systemic reasons have to do with the parasites that are the financial industry.
After a lot of thought, I think there are at least two good reasons why AAPL is down.
1) The hedge fund managers want volatility - they need to manipulate stocks in order to profit. They play their little hedge-fund manager games amongst each other, seeing who can trigger a herd reaction and be on the winning side of that landslide. Now AAPL is down, later it will be up. It's too big a part of the NASDAQ - heck, the entire market - to be ignored like this forever.
2) The professional money manager crowd hates the fact that tens of millions of individuals have purchased AAPL stock on their own, without paying money management fees to the money manager crowd. If these tens of millions of individual, thinking investors can make money without the money manager crowd then who needs the money managers?? The money manager crowd wants the individual, free-range investor to fail. There's incentive across the entire financial management industry to lower the price of AAPL as far and for as long as possible to shake out the individual investors.
The stock market and financial industry is severely rigged against individual "retail" investors. Profits are made by using insider information and by seeding false information to the public, thereby temporarily creating runs or sells on certain stocks.
While I don't think there is a formal conspiracy to manipulate the stock, there are systemic reasons why AAPL is down. None of those reasons have anything to do with Apple or its performance in the actual market (not stock market) in which it competes. All of those systemic reasons have to do with the parasites that are the financial industry.
I would agree with some of your points but not the statement that the share price has nothing to do with Apple's performance. It has everything to do with that. It's about confidence. If the markets think Apple's revenue growth is starting to slow down for whatever reason then they will move the shares down.
The shares went up when Apple announced the buyback scheme. Now investors are worried about Apple's next earnings call in a few weeks when we could see some poor numbers. Poor in comparison to the last few years anyway. That nervousness is enough to drive the share price back down again.
Those are the typical arguments of someone who can't let go of their losing stocks and finally loses everything. It may be possible to manipulate a stock on short term but not on long terms and not in this way. If Apple was attractive there would be investors on the line whou buy AAPL and who push AAPL up. I don't say that Apple is doomed yet but if they don't bring a new produckt to the market successfully Apple take the route of Sony...
I think his point was that apple ISN'T attractive to wall street but that's not based upon their performance in the mobile market.
How could it be? Top profits, top revenue, top sales, top phone.
Their stock price is based on the unrealistic and frankly idiotic notion that they should grow exponentially into perpetuity.
The point is that the stock was too expensive as it marked 700 dollars and the expectations were too high concerning growth. Now the expectations go down and the stock is adjusting to the lower expectations...
While this theory is purely speculative, it's possible that Apple is on the verge of releasing something new shortly which would boost Apples stock significantly. The reason why I say this is that Tim Cook requested that his Stock award be performance based. Now why would Cook take less.
Yes and those expectations are not based on their performance! They didn't suddenly start hemorrhaging money in September to cause their stock to collapse. Heck they made more money in their history AFTER the peak stock price.
What difference is there in the apple that made it to 700 and the apple that's at 400 now?
The difference is that now the expectations concerning growth are lower. Simple as that...
Yes it is simple as that. And the "actual" is that Apple is still setting and breaking their own records the last two qtrs. So it's clear the expectations are a little silly.
The last quarter the profit and the outlook were disappointing I think-. The Apple stock was so high because of the immense growth and if the growth slows down or stops the stock goes down...
See here:
Apple today announced financial results for the first calendar quarter of 2013 and second fiscal quarter of 2013. For the quarter, Apple posted revenue of $43.6 billion and net quarterly profit of $9.5 billion, or $10.09 per diluted share, compared to revenue of $39.2 billion and net quarterly profit of $11.6 billion, or $12.30 per diluted share in the year-ago quarter.
THIS!!!
Apple is STUPID for losing money based on NOT making multiple sizes. And they wonder why stock is down... You look at S4 and iphone 5 and you just shake your head... While lot of the features the sammy has out for s4 is gimmick, what the hell do you think SIRI was? PLUS, some of the features the sammy has was really no brainer. Apple has been sitting on their past glory for past 4 years and truly didn't come up w/ anything great. Do you really get excited when you look at iphone 5? Are you excited about iphone 5s? Come on.. For me to sit through iphone 4/4s/5 and to look forward to 5S?.. Seriously apple? It is so freaking boring. And your CEO is just promising "something big is coming"...
This company is too busy paying insiders and doesn't know what to do w/ their own products. They still have no plan for any type of master plan to bring out hybrid laptop/tablet(which is the future) and osx is just stale copy of previous iteration. I guess they are their own worst enemy(see microsoft) of their past.
You know what the problem w/ today's laptop for me? I hate typing on hot keyboard and makes my palm sweaty if working for long time. Give me solution of hybrid laptop where all the computing power is in screen(tablet!) and I can type on cold keyboard for hours and hours.. Apple, can you handle that?
What does apple do when they know they got nothing on the pipe line and cannot bring nothing out for yearly cycle? Bump up the spec and quietly skip the annual cycle(see whatever the last ipad that was).
I am a die hard apple fan but if you cannot see that people at apple has been doing NOTHING, you are blind.
I am DYING for 5 plus inch apple iphone. I have been wanting that for past 2 years but apple will not give you that. They sat around and they waited and instead of coming up w/ awesome idea to deal w/ ever increasing larger phone market, they decide to make the phone taller. This was an extremely bad idea. Idea that they will have to eat up and make other size phones in couple years. Company w/ no direction and company w/ no idea.(see Tim cook).
I walk into apple store these days and it's just same stale stuff. I know we want to defend apple but I truly cannot when I do not get excited anymore about getting apple product. I hope they come back. But it might have died w/ SJ.
When SJ spoke, people believed in him. When SJ spoke, people believed that his idea was where the future was headed. For Tim Cook? Nothing but empty promise.
Apple is STUPID for losing money based on NOT making multiple sizes. And they wonder why stock is down... You look at S4 and iphone 5 and you just shake your head... While lot of the features the sammy has out for s4 is gimmick, what the hell do you think SIRI was? PLUS, some of the features the sammy has was really no brainer. Apple has been sitting on their past glory for past 4 years and truly didn't come up w/ anything great. Do you really get excited when you look at iphone 5? Are you excited about iphone 5s? Come on.. For me to sit through iphone 4/4s/5 and to look forward to 5S?.. Seriously apple? It is so freaking boring. And your CEO is just promising "something big is coming"...
This company is too busy paying insiders and doesn't know what to do w/ their own products. They still have no plan for any type of master plan to bring out hybrid laptop/tablet(which is the future) and osx is just stale copy of previous iteration. I guess they are their own worst enemy(see microsoft) of their past.
You know what the problem w/ today's laptop for me? I hate typing on hot keyboard and makes my palm sweaty if working for long time. Give me solution of hybrid laptop where all the computing power is in screen(tablet!) and I can type on cold keyboard for hours and hours.. Apple, can you handle that?
What does apple do when they know they got nothing on the pipe line and cannot bring nothing out for yearly cycle? Bump up the spec and quietly skip the annual cycle(see whatever the last ipad that was).
I am a die hard apple fan but if you cannot see that people at apple has been doing NOTHING, you are blind.
I am DYING for 5 plus inch apple iphone. I have been wanting that for past 2 years but apple will not give you that. They sat around and they waited and instead of coming up w/ awesome idea to deal w/ ever increasing larger phone market, they decide to make the phone taller. This was an extremely bad idea. Idea that they will have to eat up and make other size phones in couple years. Company w/ no direction and company w/ no idea.(see Tim cook).
I walk into apple store these days and it's just same stale stuff. I know we want to defend apple but I truly cannot when I do not get excited anymore about getting apple product. I hope they come back. But it might have died w/ SJ.
When SJ spoke, people believed in him. When SJ spoke, people believed that his idea was where the future was headed. For Tim Cook? Nothing but empty promise.
Their profit is going to be less because of higher expenses. Their revenue went up. Wall st would be disappointed unless apple magically increased profit on decreased margins. Again...silly.
I think you misunderstand how the markets work. If I buy Apple shares today I am effectively making a bet that the shares will go up over time because that's how I'll make a profit. So I'm betting on their future earnings not their past earnings.
So when Wall Street clowns ran the stock up to $700 they had no concerns over growth but then in a matter of a couple months (or less) the lightbulb goes off and they're all concerned about slowing growth? And we're supposed to trust these clowns with managing our money?
The last statistic on phone screen sizes is the sweet spot is right around 4-4.5". Around 12% of people use phones larger then this size.
Another problem is fragmentation which makes it harder for developers to make multiple Apps for different sized phones.
You say you are waiting for Apple to do something great. Making multiple versions/screens is not great, just different.
Making hybrid laptop/tablet Apple is not going to do. All it would do is make a device that is neither a great laptop or a tablet. Touch on a laptop has always been sub par as well as a desktop experience on a tablet, not great as well.
Yes when I expect something I'm thinking about the future...
Not sure where your confusion is coming from
AAPL would be undervalued even at zero growth. The P/E is 9.87 right now.
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At zero growth in earnings Apple makes over $40 in profit every year. Show me another $420 investment that makes that much annual profit.
The majority of the Chinese market is prepaid! There are tons of people who just buy an unlocked iPhone and use it on the GSM network of China Mobile. They don't have to buy it from CMCC. Btw, the performance of TD-SCDMA 3G is not so good. Another issue is that there wasn't a proper world-mode modem that is compatible with TD until quite recently
That's 12% of the population who isn't buying an Apple product.
This shouldn't be an issue in this day and age when even our phones have enough CPU power and memory to use vector images without any performance issues. If iOS were built around maintaining a consistent size for icons and UI elements completely independent of resolution, then the problem of various screen sizes wouldn't be an problem at all. Of course there should be two UIs built to cater to larger screened devices vs. smaller ones, much as it is now for the iPhone and iPad. But it doesn't have to be so specific. The optimal goal should be to set up your OS to allow for a ton of flexibility among a variety of screen sizes without any sacrifice to usability.
And no, the current set up developers faces isn't because "Apple has determined the perfect size for the easiest to use UI among all their deviecs". It's either laziness on Apple's part, of they're having trouble converting over to a res independent UI. Case in point, the iPad Mini uses the iPad UI without any tweaks whatsoever. The icons haven't been resized, the various buttons and other elements are the same resolution as they are on the larger iPad...it's completely untouched. Yet despite this, I've heard no one complain about it being too hard to use because the UI wasn't "designed for an 8 inch screen".
Not everything has to be completely industry redefining and earth shattering before it should be implemented Larger screen sizes aren't innovative in the least, but they sure as hell are useful for the people who want or need them. So why is Apple waiting around to give us a larger iPhone?
Because it doesn't work? Obviously the market thinks otherwise. Even huge, hulking beast phones/tablet/phablet/wotzits like the Galaxy Note line are selling fairly well.
Because Apple doesn't want to pollute their product line up with too many options? The iPod and iPhone are the only two device Apple makes that doesn't have at least two size options.
I'm pretty sure hybrid laptops or tablets like the Surface Pro are the future. Like I've said previously, we're seeing an entire generation of kids growing up around touch based devices. They're going to want to use touch for everything computer related. Mice will soon be relegated to specialized tool status, and touchpads will be seen as a cheap alternative to touchscreens that does the job, but doesn't work nearly as well. It'll be a little while yet before it truly hits, but the change is coming.
And Apple knows it, I'm sure. They're currently doing what they always do, playing the waiting game until they come up with what they think is the perfect implementation of a hybrid device.
looks like apple made a U-turn and decided to innovate more rather than make more money, this is a good sign, the company is headed in the right direction, good luck.